A new interactive resource from the Centre for Addictions Research of BC (CARBC) allows researchers, policy makers, journalists and members of the public to access data related to alcohol- and other drug-related hospitalizations and deaths in British Columbia.
The Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) Trend Analyzer, developed in collaboration with the BC Centre for Disease Control, uses a methodology employed by the World Health Organisation to look at data between 2002 and 2012. The tool allows you to filter by age, gender, location in BC and medical condition.
“In essence, it now makes it possible to answer questions that a Ph.D. student might have spent several years on previously —within seconds,” says CARBC director Tim Stockwell. “One thing we have learned already is that there are regions in British Columbia where alcohol-related hospital admissions have already overtaken those caused by tobacco, with illicit drugs trailing a distant third in every case.”
On Vancouver Island, for example, alcohol-related hospitalizations surpassed those related to tobacco in 2010, while in the northern BC (where alcohol consumption is the highest), it happened in 2003. CARBC predicts that alcohol-related hospitalizations will surpass tobacco province-wide by 2020.